yellow wood

There's something to be said for the road oft-taken: you have companions on the journey and a sense of direction. The other is quieter and overgrown, virginal and heavy with potential; but you have to take it alone.

I feel like I've been wrestling with the question of what to do with my life ever since I "discovered" that I won't be able to save the world in any measurable way. I was taught to live according to my morals, take the hit for the good of humanity, seek justice and peace, walk softly on the earth. Above all, you must have a purpose to live a worthwhile existence, or to be happy. Stay focused on that and your personal ills will seem paltry and manageable.

One of the real bummers of the existential turn is the realization that we manufacture everything ourselves--we really can't escape our perceptions or proclivities, even briefly. That leaves us with a lot of responsibility for our own happiness. That's the definition of "existential dread" as I understand it, actually: the necessity of choosing for ourselves can be more than terrifying. It's a burden we avoid as often as possible, or at least, I do. I would rather be at the mercy of others' needs long before I would step forward to take the reigns and admit that I've created every moment to now and will create each moment afterward. Autonomy. It seems so solitary.

I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life. Choose.

I have thought about this passage since my most religious days as a teenager, during those fitful years of love and darkness. Always it has been a passage about making the right decision, even when the decision had nothing to do with morality. Always there was a sense that everything is black or right, and however much you want to make the right decisions, you may not know what that is until it's too late. Often, the moments the passage finds traction, a loop to skip in my thoughts, are times when the choice is literally between life and death. Those dark, fitful times are never far from me, I suppose.

I know there is another way to think about this, a healthier interpretation, I know. Choosing life is about choosing to live right now. It's about choosing to live today. All you have to do is take care of yourself today. Let tomorrow worry about itself. Be here.

Roads diverge. From time to time, you have to step onto one path or another. I've always thought about the "less traveled" one in terms of the number of people on the path, but maybe I'm missing the point. Maybe it's not distinctive because few are willing to put in the hard work of an unusual life. Maybe the "less traveled" road is the one that meanders, that doesn't connect A and B in any kind of logical way. Perhaps it's the scenic route, defined by its unpaved peaks and valleys, and the softness of the river it wanders along. Perhaps it's the route of seeing, of being where you are, of sinking toes into the mud and running fingers through the ferns.

There is space for companionship on such a road; one needn't strive, so there is time. There is always time. And you need space and time for presence, for sitting with others, for waiting with them until the river recedes from its banks, for breathing deeply and connecting with one another and with ourselves.

That is the life I would choose if I were to choose well. I don't need to get anywhere. There is no right and certainly no wrong direction. I need to be here, no matter where I am, present to myself and present to others. Those two roads are always diverging: choose.

red

It surprises me every spring that the first buds aren't green, but red. I deny it as long as I can--they're an affront, a retreat to autumnal colors, a joke. But really, it's me, of course. My imaginary spring palette is simply off. Spring has always started red, at least on those trees, which line the streets of my home town so abundantly.

It seems that in the battle between what I expect and what actually is, my expectations can be at once blinding and cruel and, of course, ridiculous. Of course there are red buds in spring.

I saw an old friend over lunch today. She's young, but experienced, a traveler, educated, with more than one skeleton in her closet. Yet somehow she avoids the gravity of it all. She's proud and a commanding feminine presence, but when I look at her, I see someone whose strength is coming from one overdeveloped muscle compensating for others that never fully healed. I know she's grown-up responsible, but she's selfish, too, a sixteen-year-old-girl selfish, half for the sake of asserting her social dominance and half self-conscious self-awareness. I like her, but I'm never completely at ease around her, which is what I think she expects of her female friends.

Today was different, though. She was well put together, subtle spring colors complementing softly disheveled ochre hair: stunning, as always (I was, as always, just slightly envious of her consistency in pulling it off). But to my surprise, I sensed that there was a thaw going on at some deep level that I couldn't quite pinpoint. It had been less than a year since I had seen her, longer than we usually let it go, but not not so long that I would expect anything beyond minor change. And, to an extent, it was almost impossible to tell that anything was different. She had been sick--that much I knew--and she told me, charmingly, of her rudeness to the hospital staff. She was not embarrassed by it: she meant that her behavior was evidence of just how sick she had been, as though neither of us would believe her capable of it in a normal state of consciousness (it took me a minute to catch on to her meaning, because, frankly, I could see her saying about the same any day of the week). Nonetheless, there was a questioning in her voice when she talked about it and a general tiredness equally likely to have been illness or maturity. It surprised me.

I wasn't the only one she was surprising, though: she had discovered, and been dismayed by, her passion for teaching. Understand, this woman is far from the warm, friendly elementary school art teacher. She's aloof. Yes, that's the best way I can sum her up--aloof. But she has found something to love, something that takes her beyond herself. And it connects her to others and softens her core.

At least, that's what I'd like to believe. A warmer, more rounded young woman, less sticks and elbows, more smiles and joy in others' accomplishments. More joy, period. But then, that's what I've always wanted from her, for her. Healing.

Today, though, seeing her in her spring colors and new gravitas, I wondered whether I might have superimposed the image of brokenness. Perhaps I only assumed that because her story was one in which things happened of which I did not approve, she must have been scarred by them. I would have been scarred by them. But then, I'm a more sensitive soul than she, and more introspective. Perhaps that is why I want her to denounce those experiences and admit that they have taken their toll: because I cannot see her without the superimposed brokenness--I cannot see her without seeing a version of myself. Or without wanting to see that.

My friend has been fine all along, though she's exploring new, healthy depths in herself. The world is not a mere projection of myself, thank goodness. Spring is red. There are new things to discover. And in that, there is hope.